Wednesday, September 29, 2004

There are times a person must do the right thing and so let me say, I am sorry. I want to apologize for supporting the US invasion of Iraq. This is not to say I think Saddam Hussein is an innocent person, he ruled the nation as a blood thirsty tyrant and while he is to be blamed for the sanctions and the distress they caused on his nation, this is was not the reason for the invastion.

Iraq was invaded to make the world safe for the American Oil Cartel. If you follow the link and go to the maps and charts you will read how Dick Cheney was preparing the dividing up of Iraq to his buddies. This Energy Task Force is part of an on-going lawsuit by Judicial Watch, what they want are the names of the participants. Which would be an interesting list.

I believe the whole thing of the Weapons of Mass Destruction, the links to Al-Qaida are all lies. Okay, yes I think Saddam did have Chemical-Biological weapons, but they were disposed of, and as for the link, no such thing. Hussein had nothing to do with 9-11.

The invasion was based upon lies and so the death of Iraqi citizens were part of this lie.

President Bush and VP Cheney are therefore war criminals and should be tried by the world as being such. Their actions and the fact they placed their own soldiers in harms was for ulterior motives makes their crimes even greater.

Monday, September 27, 2004

If there's a better reason to develop alternative fuels such as hydrogen it's this. The Oil Business is flush with cash and looking for places to invest. Since they want to use their own money they need a secure place to make the investments. So, with oil people like Bush and Chenney running the show what better then to use the might of the US to make the world safe for Big Oil. Perhaps we'll see more wars and invasions in the near future, with the outcome being huge contracts for Halliburton and Exxon. After all, when you run the country you can get great deals.

This is so good to know. We are all divided up into one of 66 groups. All this so the marketing departments of the world can garner their wares to dupe us into buyimg their schlock.

Still since this is the way things have been done, no sense getting too worked up about it. What bothers me is the people who come up with these characteristics usually put themselves in the best catagories possible. At least they thing it's the best catagory. Usually it's the groups that are into overconsumption and the continual destruction of the planet. Thanks a lot guys.

If you want to know which group you are follow the link. It's a pdf file so have acrobat reader installed on your computer. Have fun figuring out how you are to react to everything.

Sunday, September 26, 2004

This past week on Screen Savers, Cat Schwartz was one of the co-hosts. The reason for this was due to the fact Sarah Lane lost her father to cancer. Certainly this is very sad news and my thoughts and prayers are for Sarah.

It was great to watch Cat in action, she is a breathe of fresh air. Let me say I'm not a big fan of the G4-TechTV merger. The stable of G4 shows are for the most part lame, and while I do appreciate the fact gaming is a huge business, to have a whole network for it is ludicrious. Shows like "Arena" and any of the Vic and Tommy review shows are awful. I mean X-Play with Adam and Morgan give far better reviews.

I can't believe the producers and directors allowed Alec to take a baseball bat to that Mac. I mean it was a beautiful machine wrecked for some dumb purpose. Cat sure wrapped her lovely arms around her iBook after that dispaly of wanton destruction. Iassure you they would never have allowed on that on the old "The Screen Savers", although that would be more due to the large and loud Mac audience they usually had. Can you imagine trying that when MacWorld was on and with all those MacGeeks in the audience. I'm sure more then a few would have thrown their bodies on the machine and the rest would have wrestled the bat from Alec and then applied a liitle noCal justice to him.

Still Cat was great this past week and I hope, hope that the powers that run G4TechTV will come to their senses and realize they've ruined some great chemistry. Bring back Cat! Bring back Patrick! I'm glad to see Leo back with Call for Help. The show is getting better and better. Keep Kevin. Keep Sarah.

Friday, September 24, 2004

The Leonard Cohen FilesSuzanne takes you down
to her place near the river
you can hear the boats go by
you can spend the night beside her
And you know that she's half crazy

I know this blog is a few days old and I should have mentioned this on the 21st but better late then never. So, Happy Birthday Leonard . Yes it was the 70th birthday of the Grand Man of Letters, Leonard Cohen. Anyone who read, or listened or watched anything on him knows what a great man he is. He had a collection of poems called "Death of a Ladies Man", and for him it's definately premature. He is still going strong, in fact he's bringing out a new collection of songs in October.

I suppose we all in Canada look to him as the source of inspiration. As I said, we watched his videos, or that great NFB documentary "Ladies and Gentlemen, Leonard Cohen". It was produced in 1965 and you see the artist as a young man. I watched on Bravo! a few years ago and it still reveals the power of this man.

So to you Leonard, we share the creative power of your words and voice. May you live long.

Thursday, September 23, 2004

Poor Paul. After saying the right thing about Africa he faces the potential for revolt at home. Maybe he should take that gig with Bono and the guys.

Seriously it's a case of chickens coming home to roost isn't it. When he got rid of the Chretien loyalists, he made a lot of enemies. The one thing you have to understand about Liberals is they have very long memories. They don't forget and they never forgive.

For once a blog that agrees with Paul Martin. I know what you're think, better circle this date on a calendar. Let me give credit where credit is due, he is absolutely right. The UN and the Security Council are sitting around diddling about definitions when thousands of people are suffering. It is the killings, the ethnic cleansing, the rape and the displacement of people. This is another human tragedy, but this can be different, because the world can do something about it.

I thought the UN had learned from Rwanda but it seems the organization suffers deeply from NIMBY, if it isn't nearby, or if the nations or nation involved doesn't have oil, then quite frankly it doesn't matter.

Paul said this "Our common humanity should be a powerful enough argument and that is precisely what is missing. Put simply, there is still no explicit provision in international law for intervention on humanitarian grounds". You know what, right on Paul. Maybe he did learn something by hanging out with his pal Bono, or maybe all those lessons he leared from his father did come back to him.

Whatever the reason I do say, good on you Paul Martin. Keep telling them we need to get involved.

Sunday, September 19, 2004

Arrr me mateys. 'Tis the finest day of the year, the day all ye swashbucklers kin shed yr formals and talk like real men and women of the seas. Tis "Talk like a Pirate Day'". A day for rum and song. A day to remember all those who's passing we admire.

Friday, September 17, 2004

I decided to include this page to make mention of the fact that the health accord is now off the front pages. We have solved Canada's health problem. Hallelujah, now we can deal with what's really important like the hockey strike.

I've been thinking about the health accord, the plan to save the Healthcare system in Canada. I'm glad to read that Roy Romanow sees it as a set in the right direction. However I get the feeling there is still a lot of work to do. You see we have a program that is taking a lot of money but providing less and less. On one hand you hear that the provinces are spending more of their budget dollars on health care, which means they're either increasing taxes or cutting back other programs. Which ever means there is a problem. However, what is being provided is less. There are waiting lines, there are shortages of staff, but it's costing more and more.

There are intrinsic problems that may require more then just throwing money at it, and hope it goes away. What is the problem is the question, and perhaps if we could face this problem we could come to the answer. Here's what I hear and wonder about, they say that people are living longer and longer and procedures are becoming more technical, read expensive. With people living longer the potential for expensive sickness increases. Then there is the worry about the baby boomer, when we all turn 70+ are we simply going to swamp the system. It's like pensions, the huge baby boom generation is coming. Yet, when you think about it, this is the time to save for that future, after all the baby boomers are all in their 40's and 50's closing in on 60's. This same group is at their prime earning ages and so that means more disposable income which in turn means more taxes. Plus with the huge number of babyboomers plus the busters plus the gen-x'er means there's a whole lot of people paying into the system you would think there would be no problem. Yet we have a problem.

Perhaps part of it, and this has been discussed by others. It is too institutionalized. By this it means too hospital oriented. Hospitals are expensive to operate and so the rationale is to put all services into the hospital, such as MRI and Labs. But to do all this requires people, lots and lots of people. So expenses are up and this requires more funding. If anything goes wrong, you still have this behemoth consuming the income but not providing the services.

I think the most important part of the recent agreement is the transparency with every province but Quebec. This is part of the asymetrical federalism that is Canada. That means by the way that the rules don't apply to Quebec. So you got to know this is just waiting to be a problem.

I think I'm going to sleep on it and come up with the perfect solution tomorrow.

And who said semantics is dead. Here's an interesting example of opinion colouring the news. Reuters is all upset that CanWest Global is changing the wording of their stories. Now, let's identify the players shall we, you have Reuters, a long time provider of the news, which now has been bought by Arab interests. So the news they send out over their wire services is going to have a particular bias. Shall we say more pro-Palestinian then objective. Then you have CanWest Global, owned by the Asper family, it bought Southam news from Conrad Black, including the National Post. The fellow who did this was Israel "Izzy" Asper. Now with a name like that you can assume it's bias is pro-Israel. I think that's fair. So you have a rather anti-Israeli organization complaining that it's bias is being changed to reflect the bias of another organization.

It gets even more interesting, now a group called Council on American-Islamic Relations Canada wants to complain as well, since the National Post tends to portray terrorists as Muslim, wow, imagine that.

I must admit, Reuters does have a point, if the Post is changing the bias to reflect its bias, there should be some mention of it. I believe that's only fair. However, the Post does have the right to make comment on the news, so that it reflects its unique view of the world.

To the busybodies of the Council on American-Islamic Relations Canada I have only one word of advice, the same word of advice the Dark Lord of Black once gave to Maude Barlow, "if you don't like what I print, start your own newspaper". Come on guys, you're getting Al_Jazeera, you'll be able to have all the strident anti-Israeli propaganda you want.

Thursday, September 16, 2004

One quick comment, before you start to celebrate this, I did some calculations. This works out to $136.00 per person per year. So in other words, this works out to one extra visit to the emergency room or the clinic, because you probably won't have a family doctor with this agreement.

Well it is now official, the lock out is on and the chances of a new season are probably getting slim. After all when you are dealing with to very entrenched sides, it's hard for compromise to happen, think the Western Front, circa 1914-1918.

One article says that Canadians are more willing to side with the owners then the players. Yes I can understand that it's hard to garner much sympathy for any group that makes 30 times your average salary. The concept of the spoiled brat comes to mind. But before we start throwing rocks at the players let remember the owners in all this, they are equally to blame. They are the ones, especially those in the major centres like New York and Detroit that paid the players all that money.

I came across one stat, speaking of players' salaries and I learned the average salary of the Calgary Flames was 925,000 US and the average for Tampa Bay was 1,155,000 US. In other words the Stanley Cup champ paid their players 225,000 more to win the cup then the runner's up. The Rangers, by the way pay over 2.5 million US to be a last place team.

So I suppose who is to blame for this mess, players? Owners? A combination of both? How about one person, and that person is Gary Bettman. What can be said about this weazel, besides the fact that calling him a weazel is to insult weazels everywhere? Who else has made the League a laughing stock then him. If you are reading this in Canada, you may remember his infamous interview with Ron McLean. Now Ron McLean is a man very knowledgeable about hockey, he's a broadcaster, straightman to Don Cherry and a referee. Yet to hear Bettman call him "Ronny" was maddening. In fact I felt if I heard him say that one more time I would have if I could, reached through the tv and throttled him. The man is arrogant with no reason to be arrogant. He has no appreciation of the game of hockey. Remember he's the guy that let Winnipeg and Quebec lose their hockey teams. He is the fellow that watched Pittsburg go almost down the tube.

I know this is a baseball concept but one of the roles of the Commissioner is to act in the best interest of the game. All Bettman has done is ruin hockey. He ignores his primary market, Canada with the hope of making the game popular in the US. Instead he's allowed the league to become something that is losing popularity. Some people laugh at the fact that SpongeBob Squarepants is more popular on TV then the NHL.

It's enough to wish for the return of John A. Ziegler Jr. Now understand I believe Mr. Ziegler was a good president of the NHL, after al he understood and loved hockey. He cared for the game.

Well, what will all this mean for TV watching in Canada. Let's see, how many times can the CBC re-broadcast the funeral of Pierre Trudeau and that lame mini-series on him.

As for TSN and SportsNet, I guess they will either show classic games or we will learn about all sorts of exotic sports. Hey, you can never have enough "World's Strongest Man" contests.

Wednesday, September 15, 2004

I came across this article through a posting of a yahoo group I belong to, and may I say this is brilliant.

They say it's always good for a writer to state his biases and well here is mine. Yes I am a Christian, the born-again variety and yes I've tried to be right wing. But goodness, I never felt comfortable being one of those 'religious right' types. You may gather from my rants during the election I am not a friend of liberalism. Actually I'm not a friend of the Liberal party of Canada which believe me is NOT a liberal organization. It is a tired, corrupt worn-out organization that has managed to bamboozle the electorate through fluff and scare tactics into getting themselves elected yet again, but enough of that.

The premise of the paper is to ask the question why are Christian fundalmentalists, which make up the religious right in the States a part of the neo-conservative movement? There is a listing of the groups making of the neo-cons and truly it is frightening. In fact the groups listed, the libertarians, free market absolutists and plutocrats are as far from the philosophy of Jesus, if not in opposition to, as possible.

One quote that I thought was interesting is this one"The Right has, in effect, established a separate and distinct definition of "liberal," so that it is effectively equated with "libertinism" - sex, drugs and rock 'n roll. In addition, the Right's use of "liberal" connotes the stifling of religion, welfare cheating, profligate government spending (as in "tax-and-spend-liberals") and even, in the hands of such uninhibited ranters as Ann Coulter, treason.
". Here is the key, the 'secular' right knew which buttons to push, they painted the liberals as being pro-abortion, pro-gay, anti-private schools and soft on crime. So by pushing these buttons, they were able to, as the next paragraph says:" In short, this redefined “liberalism” serves well as an embodiment of “evil” to the religious right. And when this sense of “liberalism” is associated, through constant repetitions, with the Democratic Party – well, you know the rest
". So the Democrats are the embodiment of evil. So what sort of agenda does the Republicans push, well, pro-life, but only of unborn children, forget about who live in the third world, or even those who live in the ghetto.

In other words, by pushing a few topics they, the secular right are able to get their way. You have to understand the bible, it is a document with a very strong sense of social justice. The writer points this out and certainly the case could be made by quoting prophets such as Amos and others. Certainly Jesus made not attempt to hide his anger against those who exploited the poor, even going so far as throwing the money changers out of the Temple.

If you are a Christian I invite you to read this article, it will get you thinking. You will ask yourself 'what would Jesus do'. What would He do? Perhaps he'd march to the White House and throw Bush out.

Tuesday, September 14, 2004

Every so often something comes up that gets my blood boiling and I have to stop and blog off on the subject. Today has to do with a film that 'premiering' at the Toronto International Film Festival. Normally I would say nothing about a film festival since they tend to be pretentious and overblown affairs in which third rate movies directed by foruth rate directors starring fifth rate 'actors' is the order of the day. Most of the stuff is nothing more then glorified film school stuff that failed the course.

However at the festival this year is a particularly noxious film that goes by the name of "Casuistry: The Art of Killing a Cat". The film is a documentary about these three scumbag losers who thought it would be a good idea to capture a stray cat, torture it, skin it and then kill it. They decided it would even be better to shoot the whole thing on video as a statement against the slaughter of cows for food. A rather interesting leap of logic, one that would escape most thinking people.

The scum eventually were arrested and pleaded guilty for animal cruelty. So this character Zev Asher decides to make a documentary about it, and he interviews some of those idiots. What really got me about this film and no I haven't seen it and you want to know something, I have no interest in seeing it. The only reason I'm mentioning anything about this film is to rag on the people involved. Yet this is considered 'art'. What really got me was the concluding comments about the film and this is from the Film Festival Website: "He places us in a unique space, one which vacillates between serious reflection, horror, transgression, banality, righteousness, humour and - mostly - paradox. This may be one of the most political films in this year's Festival." There are a lot of words that one can use to describe the torture of animals, but banality and humour and never one of them. I understand the director allows these knobs the right to defend their actions. Yes, let us have a lunatic explain themselves.

However the film festival has defended their right to
show it. Let's call it what it is, garbage. And now for the rants, Jesse Power, Anthony Wennekers and Matthew Kaczorowski you three are total idiots and if you think torturing a cat is great, perhaps you would love to experience your own skinning at the hands of the Friends of Animals Group.

Zev Asher, you're an idiot for even considering these knobs deserve even a second of film. Hey, if you think torturing a cat is banal and funny it's a shame you weren't alive for the Holocaust, I bet the killing of all those Jews was a hoot.

Toronto Film Festival, while you're hiding behind the shield of 'freedom of expression', let me give you my expression, you are total idiots for giving any of the above a stage by which to show their cruelty. Even if they don't show any of the footage they shot, just allowing them to gain any noteriety over it is wrong.

I called Bell Canada and suggested they consider not sponsoring this Festival again by the way.

Let me say the torture and killing of anyone, or anything is wrong and no one should think of it ever as being 'humourous' or 'banal'.

Monday, September 13, 2004

A few days ago it was a wonderfully warm and sunny day. I have been hoping that the sunflowers I planted would eventually flower. As you can see it has and is doing quite well. Today there were bees flying around and so I hope that the seeds will soon develop.

First of all, I am very happy that Scott Taylor did not meet the fate of so many of those who have been captured in Iraq. It disgusts me that these "militants", or thugs as they should be known feel they have the right to kidnap, torture and kill innocent people is terrible.

One of the telling lines of the article is this one: "Simoneau says it's still unclear what prompted the abductors to let Taylor go. "
May I make a suggestion, because they found out he's Canadian. You may ask how would that influence their decision? Simple, because they know Canada is a friend of terrorist organizations. With our wimpy government, the fact they don't listen or even read the CSIS reports on terrorist organizations in Canada. A few years ago, before he became our Prime Minister, Paul Martin attended a fund raising dinner for a Tamil social group. CSIS warned Paul that this group was a front for the Tamil Tigers, a notorious separatist terror groups in Sri Lanka, that quote is taken from the "Terrorism: Questions and Answers page. Yet Paul went to shake his boogie and take the cash. It keeps him quiet when dealing with all terrorist groups. Scott even though he probably hates terrorist groups enjoyed the fact that he is from a nation that is very friendly and soft to terrorist groups. Our nation is a safe haven to all groups that use terror as their major weapon. We are the front for organizations and we support them with money. All the time our government turns a blind eye to them.

Wednesday, September 08, 2004

Now that the inquest into the sponsorship 'scandal', the Liberal Party has decided to get some legal representation for the inquiry. First of all, this is not a legal inquiry, it is an investigation so you have to wonder why they have to bring in such a powerful legal team.

If that wasn't enough now they want the people of Canada, that is the same bunch of taxpayers they hosed with the sponsorship scandel, should foot the legal bill.

Hey, Liberals, I have an idea for you, why don't you get some of that cash you sent to your buddies in Quebec and ask for some more donations. After all you all know that you can arrange to send more money to them. Just let them know if any of the truth gets into the open not only is the cozy little arrangement over, most of the people involved will be making license plates for bucks a day and not bending over while in the shower, if you get my drift.

It's now time for the scondrels to hang together.

Oh by the way, hear John Kerry wants to stop the flow of Toronto garbage to Michigan. I hope this strikes some fear into the denizens of the mistake by the Lake. Guess what, you days of seeing your garbage go over the border may be coming to an end. If you read the Toronto Star and watch CBC you think Canadians want Mr. Kerry to win, personally I'm not at the place to make an opinion yet. So that means only a few months and you're going to have to find a place to store it all. One person said they'll enter discussion with some other states, umm, dude, if Kerry doesn't want it in Michigan, what makes you think he wants Canadian garbage anywhere.

I always find it interesting to notice that everytime some MP yaps about the Americans something goes wrong for Canada. Of course the person is the same idiot MP from Mississauga, Carolyn Parrish called them 'idiots'. Hey Carolyn maybe the people of Toronto should use your property as the new garbage dump. Maybe that would teach you to watch what you say.

Understand, I truly believe we have the right to differ from the Americans, and if this Space Shield is not a good idea, then discuss the issue, and keep the name calling out of it.

Tuesday, September 07, 2004

Why doesn't this surprise me, the annual performance reviews of the Department of Public Works never made mention about the sponsorshpi program. Do you think because everyone knew it was a sham and the whole program was nothing more then a way to transfer taxpayers dollars to the friends of the Prime Minister? Do you think Canadians would have rioted if they knew the whole time?

So next time you look at your pay stub just tell yourself that part of this money you send every week, or every other week went to and probably still goes to that most fortunate of groups, "The Friends of the Prime Minister".

Thursday, September 02, 2004

I know it's been a bit of time since I blogged, so I got to get caught up. Well let me say I finally started to watch "The Passion of the Christ". If I can give a one word review, moving. Profound, incredible. Thank you Mel Gibson for giving us this incredible interpretation of the events of that Good Friday and first Easter.

What I 'enjoyed' was the little touches, such as Jesus looking at a dove before he went before Pilate. The symbol, the Holy Spirit was present to help Him even at this time. It is a movie not for the faint in heart, it is gory. There is no letting up on the violence then again we realize it was a violent time and life was cheap.